I'm very interested in seeing how the individual spheres are going to be developed in this game. In my opinion, they should be made to balance enough that mono sphere decks become very playable, but the spheres should still retain their unique attributes. This is the thin line between balance and uniqueness.

I'm seeing some new cards that have started to add versatility to the spheres. Born Aloft is essentially a recursion card for Tactics. Sort of a counterpart to Sneak Attack(although the mechanics are different). This now means that 3 spheres(if you count Spirit's Stand and Fight) have a way to play the same ally multiple times and I like the fact that they all use a different mechanism to do so.

Lore is very good at drawing extra cards, Leadership can also be good at it, but now Spirit is getting it's own draw card, Ancient Mathom. Aside from once again adding versatility to a sphere, I like the fact that Mathom uses a different mechanic, attaching itself to a location. This not only provides the benefit once the location is explored, but fits perfectly with Spirit's questing prowess.

Finally Lore is geting a strong, versatile ally in Haldir. I see him as sort of a counterpart to Faramir or Northern Tracker, without a signature effect, but just as useful.

Seems like, thus far, the designers are doing a good job in increasing mono deck playability without encroaching too much on another sphere's strengths. Spirit and Lore continue to develop within themselves, Leadership is already fairly good at everything and Tactics is developing an interesting flair for great effects through the discard/return to hand mechanic(Boromir, Landroval, Born Aloft) I'm hoping they all continue to do so, I want every sphere to be able to work primarily due to it's strengths with a little touch of everything else.

I'm a fan of mono decks so I'm definitely hoping all 4 spheres are viable as single faction efforts. I also think it would make bringing decks to play with groups easier in terms of not bringing the same heroes by accident. If I have decks for each sphere and show up to a multiplayer game and the other player is using mono decks as well, it's easier to just pick a sphere and get in the game. If we're playing mixed decks we might be using the same hero(es) even though our decks are built differently and then we'd have to take the time to swap out and adjust and our decks might not be as tight as they were before the swap out. Like everyone showing up to a four player game with Eowyn (oops!).

I think the spheres will keep their own flavors. Like Lore will be known as the one with the most healing capabilities, etc.

I'm pretty satisfied with the way things are developing for each faction so far. Tactics suffers from some real inefficiency, but works well in two player games in my experience. With a couple of cheap allies sporting "when played" or "discard to" abilities, or something to even temporarily boost willpower and Tactics stays challenging (no real card draw) and becomes very playable, IMO.

Leadership and Spirit are both really great right now, but not to the point where I think they play themselves. I'm really feeling Parting Gifts and Common Cause for multisphere leaderships. Leadership's resource mastery is lots of fun. Signals are also neat. Spirit speaks for itself.

I don't have a comment on Lore. I haven't used the sphere enough yet.

As of this third AP, a player with two core sets and the APs can make 50 card monofaction decks, even though they won't be good. However, with two core sets and all three APs, I think players can make decent 40 card decks, at least for multiplayer. It'd be neat to get some feedback from some of our number crunching forums users on this.

qwertyuiop said:

With what you said about Tactics, I actually think that it is not weaker than the rest. The reason I say so is because of the Tactics Heroes. With the exception of Thrandil or whatever his name is. I have to say that the tactics heroes are pretty ass kicking, making their sphere equal to the rest. The ability to beef up Gimli should definitely not be overlooked and a ranged journey token adder in Legolas is awesome too. Factoring in the Tactic heroes I think all spheres kind of balance out.